ICED

There were only a very few hearty souls on the Riverwalk today, and one crazy guy (me.) with a camera.  Twenty degrees F with 20 MPH winds made for one seriously chilly afternoon.  The only critters to be found this day were the Ring Billed Gulls, and most of them were staging a sit-in.  The few that were gathered for the most part were plopped down square in the middle of the walkway.  Not perched on the pilings, nor atop light poles, they hunkered down in an attempt to stay out of the fiercest winds.

The winds were worse this morning, and I didn't have my camera with me at the time.  I'm glad in a way, as I only lasted about 30 minutes this afternoon, and this morning it was 11F with gusts to 30 MPH winds.

The ice shapes on the pilings are really interesting.  My guess is that at the high tide the wider ring of ice developed just above and at the tide line.  The the spray and waves caused the rest above.  As the tide fell it left the water dripping and formed the icicles below.  That's my guess and I'm sticking to it.


 This guy was looking for a meal.  He wandered over to a SUV that had just pulled in.  No food was delivered, so it was time to take a rest.

Now to the north there were the others doing their 'sit-in.'  While I'm pretty sure they were complaining about the housing and lack of food, there was time for preening.  I'm fairly sure this must have been the Queen I saw last week. No one else was trying to look good.  Nope.  The others were tucked in as best they could be.













 So you can see the Queen at work....




and notice the loyal subject below...



He's head down, tucked-in, and thoughtfully not looking back at the Queen.
















Here's a better look at the serf...































And once again...  the Queen has an addiction problem..  very narcissistic!

"Strike a pose!"....  "How's this?"

Doesn't it look like someone just yanked him off the ground?

 Photo-bombed by a gull!





I got his photo to turn him in

 And the last shot was of the ice on the rocks below the Riverwalk.

I was plenty warm with lots of layers on.  The one exception was my fingers, they were shot by the end of the 30 minutes..  I guess that's the next weak link to work on..  some new gloves or mittens.

Till next time,

Blessings,
Brian